Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, there is strong sense of deja vu about this debate. It is none the worse for that, but many of these issues have been debated previously. Because I had an involvement at one stage, I wish to make a couple of points in the hope that they will help the House in dealing with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones. I note that it is about information requirements and, therefore, perhaps I may say that some of the broader questions that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has raised actually do not relate to the amendment. I also well recall the issues in relation to the NatWest Three or the Enron Three, depending on how one viewed them, and the controversy that that gave rise to. The House will know that ultimately they pleaded guilty to the offences with which they were charged. I want also to declare an interest as I am a practising lawyer and some of these issues come before me in relation to clients. I need to make that clear to the House. There are three points to be made. One is that the way that extradition used to work—and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, will know this very well—was enormously long and time-consuming; an extradition request which was ultimately justified could take years to execute—the record may have been in relation to a Hong Kong case that managed to take 10 years. That is a great abuse of justice; either the extradition should not happen or it should not take that long.